The Mansion sits in silence, everything inside it coated in a heavy layer of dust. It's waiting. It's plotting. It had reluctantly released its captives for a while -- back to their native books lands -- but that was only to lull them into a false sense of security. Now it's back with a renewed sense of mischief ( Read more... )

In the early morning, a person coming down to put together their breakfast will find a young woman, teenaged, dressed for the turn of the nineteenth into the twentieth century, sitting quietly in a chair at the kitchen table.

She is pale and abstracted from lack of sleep, and there is something faintly peculiar about her features, especially around ( Read more... )

Si Wang-mu has grown accustomed to many strange things since leaving her parents’ household to work and study in the household of her lady -

But, it has to be admitted, none of those strange things involve suddenly being in an unfamilar kitchen, when you were discussing spatial geometry with your lady ( Read more... )

He did it. He accepted to serve in the kitchen, again, and he’s not excited. But there are needs and reasons - and possible advantages to be gained. In a time where food becomes a desirable commodity, he figures being in a strategic place is more than a brilliant plan, and so he is now considering duties to be done - or rather, preparing to ( Read more... )

Kay has had just about enough of this nonsense.

So there is a sign in the main room, with a semi-scowling knight nearby. The spelling is creative, but it says roughly:

Those that want food, sign up below for whatever you can do. You'll do your job rotating with others. If you don't want to participate don't. Work and get food. Questions see ( Read more... )

The tiny white van pulls up to the mansion, and a cheerful, traditionally built lady gets out with some difficulty and walks up to the door. She rings the doorbell.

Typist: Introducing Mma Precious Ramotswe of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency.

Knights are nothing new at the Mansion, and even though the resident knights are more likely to drive their horses behind a plow than to ride them into battle, and may more often be found dueling recalcitrant weeds than evil knights, they are knights just the same, and so it is hardly an unusual or very remarkable thing to see a medieval knight on ( Read more... )

There is, at the top of the main staircase, a heavy oak door with a frosted glass panel, like a monochrome sunset, over the frame. On the door, at eye level, is a brass nameplate. “Ariane Emory, Pysch.,” it says, in deeply engraved letters ( Read more... )

Out in the gardens a young man is sitting under a fir tree. He is tall, and dark haired, and handsome in a vaguely threatening sort of way ( Read more... )

Enter a young woman, looking quite miserable, for lack of a better word. Without noticing her surroundings, she collapses into a chair, sobbing as if her heart were breaking and clutching a tear-stained letter in her hand. This is Marianne Dashwood, who's just received some very bad news. Who'd like to comfort her?

Typist: Like it says, ( Read more... )